View Poll Results: Did you buy shares ?

Pretty dead in here these last few weeks, kind gives me a eerie feeling. Honestly, if this thing could get back to 10 in the next year I'm cutting my loses and going elsewhere. I don't know what else to do anymore

Pretty dead in here these last few weeks, kind gives me a eerie feeling. Honestly, if this thing could get back to 10 in the next year I'm cutting my loses and going elsewhere. I don't know what else to do anymore

Pretty dead in here these last few weeks, kind gives me a eerie feeling. Honestly, if this thing could get back to 10 in the next year I'm cutting my loses and going elsewhere. I don't know what else to do anymore

well Prem does not seem to be too anxious about holding BB shares and he has the inside track, so why worry now? if you bought for a quick flip on the buyout that obviously didn't happen, but we have known that for some time already. if you bought for the long haul, don't sweat the small stuff, like Prem. just set it and forget it....because it is going to take some time to turn this thing around

Currently Fairfax does not and it is sitting on slightly less than 14% of the shares.

If Fairfax exercises the option to invest an additional $250 million, within sixty days, they will have 102 million shares and will then control 17.7% of the shares. My guess is that Fairfax will put in the additional $250 million.

Rule 13d-3(d)(1) also provides that any securities not outstanding which are subject to such options or conversion privileges shall be deemed to be outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage of outstanding securities of the class owned by such person but shall not be deemed to be outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage of the class by any other person. Therefore, the percentage of outstanding securities has been calculated based on 576,070,940 Shares of BlackBerry, comprised of 526,070,940 Shares of BlackBerry outstanding as of October 24, 2013, as reported in the Subscription Agreement, and assuming: (i) the conversion of the Debentures already acquired by Fairfax pursuant to the Subscription Agreement into 25,000,000 Shares; (ii) the conversion of the full amount of the Additional Debentures into 25,000,000 Shares; and (iii) no other Debentures being converted.

Just installed the latest leaked OS to my backup Z10 and it works perfectly. Lots of new features. Android apps download so easily now and work as they are supposed to! I am really liking what BlackBerry is putting out now. The updates are fantastic. Long live BlackBerry!!!!

Don't know if it was already posted - but IBM recently acquired Fiberlink Communications, company that specializes in MDM with their MaaS360 product (similar to BES).
They were probably looking at Blackberry as well.

Currently Fairfax does not and it is sitting on slightly less than 14% of the shares.

If Fairfax exercises the option to invest an additional $250 million, within sixty days, they will have 102 million shares and will then control 17.7% of the shares. My guess is that Fairfax will put in the additional $250 million.

I think you're misinterpreting. [Edit: but I'm wrong.] The debenture doesn't give them any shares right now, and although I definitely haven't dug into that SEC filing myself, I had the distinct impression this was an indication that they had, in fact, actually purchased those additional shares on the market.

Until and unless they convert the debenture into shares, which I really don't think they've done yet, and am not sure they even can right away, the shares they have are unrelated to it.

I think you're misinterpreting. The debenture doesn't give them any shares right now, and although I definitely haven't dug into that SEC filing myself, I had the distinct impression this was an indication that they had, in fact, actually purchased those additional shares on the market.

Until and unless they convert the debenture into shares, which I really don't think they've done yet, and am not sure they even can right away, the shares they have are unrelated to it.

Someone please correct me if I'm totally wrong on that.

The filing explains this in better detail. Basically for the purpose of this filing the 17% includes the 25M shares that could be acquired from the convertible debt they bought AND another 25M shares that could be converted from the $250M in additional debt that Fairfax has the option to buy.

So the actual current holding is still the 52M shares from before. In this filing it is shown as 102M to include all possible conversion of debt (including debt they haven't actually bought yet)

However, Rule 13d-3(d)(1) promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), provides that a person shall be deemed to be the beneficial owner of a security if that person has the right to acquire beneficial ownership of such security within sixty days, including any right to acquire through the exercise of any option or through the conversion of a security. Therefore, in accordance with Rule 13d-3(d)(1), the Shares of BlackBerry underlying both the Debentures issued to Fairfax and the Shares of BlackBerry underlying the Additional Debentures have been included in the number of shares beneficially owned by the Reporting Persons, where applicable.
(2)Rule 13d-3(d)(1) also provides that any securities not outstanding which are subject to such options or conversion privileges shall be deemed to be outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage of outstanding securities of the class owned by such person but shall not be deemed to be outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage of the class by any other person. Therefore, the percentage of outstanding securities has been calculated based on 576,070,940 Shares of BlackBerry, comprised of 526,070,940 Shares of BlackBerry outstanding as of October 24, 2013, as reported in the Subscription Agreement, and assuming: (i) the conversion of the Debentures already acquired by Fairfax pursuant to the Subscription Agreement into 25,000,000 Shares; (ii) the conversion of the full amount of the Additional Debentures into 25,000,000 Shares; and (iii) no other Debentures being converted.

where would the share price be without Prem buying all that? and he said he was not going to buy more BB shares?

My guess is he hasn't bought any mire shares. I am pretty sure under SEC filing rules the conversion rights count since it is a contracted for absolute right to buy them at 10. I think we went thru a similar issue with Mike and the other BBRY guy last filing season when they pooled their shares. YMMV....

I think you're misinterpreting. The debenture doesn't give them any shares right now, and although I definitely haven't dug into that SEC filing myself, I had the distinct impression this was an indication that they had, in fact, actually purchased those additional shares on the market.

Until and unless they convert the debenture into shares, which I really don't think they've done yet, and am not sure they even can right away, the shares they have are unrelated to it.

Someone please correct me if I'm totally wrong on that.

I think you are wrong. The conversion rights are present and exercisable contract rights that have to be accounted for.

Ok.. I haven't read either, (just got home and have had a "few" beers so forgive me) but how can one interpret a raise in ownership percentage based on the debentures without adding those shares to the float, and, the additional shares from the others that have invested in the offering? These essentially, and forgive me if I'm wrong, are warrants. If the price goes above $10, and they exercise their right to convert, the shares get diluted and the ownership percentage doesn't change. ergo... doesn't that mean that the ownership raise is due to purchased shares on the open market?

Ok.. I haven't read either, (just got home and have had a "few" beers so forgive me) but how can one interpret a raise in ownership percentage based on the debentures without adding those shares to the float, and, the additional shares from the others that have invested in the offering? These essentially, and forgive me if I'm wrong, are warrants. If the price goes above $10, and they exercise their right to convert, the shares get diluted and the ownership percentage doesn't change. ergo... doesn't that mean that the ownership raise is due to purchased shares on the open market?

I think they would be buying treasury shares issued or currently held by the corporation. This dilutes the shares held by the public. Normally a corp is authorized to issue x number of shares but doesn't issue them all. They are held as treasury shares and can be issued in a deal like this or a secondary offering to the market. When you hear about share buybacks, the corp buys he shares and then holds them, they don't go away or get retired, but are held as treasury shares, at least here in the US. The % do change and PW dillutes himself to a small degree, but the little guys get it worse in raw numbers. It's early here and no beer (yet) so forgive me....

Theoretically they don't have to wait until it hits 10+ to convert. They can exercise at any time which is why the SEC counts them now. It almost always won't make economic sense to exercise their rights under 10+, but they could.

We are talking about the recently filed 13D .............. Prem hasn't purchased any additional shares during the past 60 days, he would have had to file for them if he did ( a 13D within 10 days of purchase). What he did was act as the lead underwriter for the bond issue which comprises of 100,000,000 shares of potential dilution to shareholders, deemed to be 526 MM shares outstanding at the time of this issue. He took up 25 MM shares through his insurance companies, as you can see, there is roughly 82 MM shares spread amongst them all listed in that document.

In aggregate, he has control over his 52 MM, plus the 25 MM confirmed by his subs, plus the balance of the over subscribed shares of the $ 250 MM Bond that can still be taken up here. Because he is the lead underwriter, he is assigned those additional shares, not because he will be the only one to invest the additional $ 250 MM, but because there are no other names available to assign the potential purchase to, so it goes to the underwriter. In fact, those additional 25 MM shares will likely get prorated into all of the existing players who took up the first allotment. So Prem might end up with 25% of the additional 25 MM shares. Hope this is clear?

If you add up the shares truly controlled by Prem you get his 52 MM plus the 25 MM with a clear statement at the bottom of the document that none of the Directors of his subs have purchased shares on their own, expect one dude who purchased 9,900 shares in the past 60 days. When and if Prem had gone over the 10% ownership threshold, he would have had to report that change in ownership within 10 days of the purchase. That's a milestone that he would have had to report (re: 10% or more ownership and the 2% rule). It's a bit confusing but we'll know more when the 30-day period is up and they report whether the additional $ 250 MM of bonds gets picked up. Hope this helps!

In Nigeria, Airtel to provide a BBM 'bundle' on Android and iPhones by offering unlimited data usage for BBM for less than US $2 a month

Where do these people come from? Schools back in session: Lesson One: Never trust anything financial--whether news or proffered deal--from Nigeria ... Mellville NY, Boca Raton FL, Irvine CA, Phoenix AZ, Las Vegas NV or any city ending in "Beach". (The only exception are all cash deals from the big boys hustling Casino deals in Las Vegas.) And if you need to ask why, or question why, you should be reading/studying more than trying to write on a (credible) blog. Pretty basic, long-standing "stuff" here!! [Note: That's okay, a rhetorical question: I understand that this thread now resembles more of a circa 2001 Yahoo Finance blog.]

Originally Posted by Randeman

Just wait until BlackBerry adds the voice and video to xBBM. They may have to modify the price of their unlimited data plans.

Is this intended as a compliment or complement to a further decline by BB?

Originally Posted by leafs123

They updated BBM for Android today. It's definitely faster and now you can share your pin on any platform with one function. I would love to see them redesign it though in order to go in line more with newer Android/iOS UIs.

At this point in the ballgame, hey, that might be just great for the typical Nigerian. LOL

Originally Posted by Corbu

... Reading the latest news and headlines Pfizer Ditching BlackBerry, [c]iting Its volatile State - Bloomberg [News cite]. The BBM Honeymoon Ends (but a New Phone Is on Sale) - Canada Real Time - WSJ[/url]), I am getting irritated by the fact that BBRY can't seem to do anything right or get any credit for such (e.g. the new OS is not even a year old and, quite frankly, it has evolved considerably). BBRY is getting kicked around by the media, the markets, everyone...

We have been through the Strategic Review. ... I... am anxious and impatient for the new CEO to set a new vision for BBRY and start being both proactive ... and hitting back to counter the negative perception that seems to be associated ...[with] BBRY. ... Let's ... do whatever is required for BBRY to stop being bullied around ... Granted, BBRY has its large share of the blame: it's been through some self-inflicted turmoil, it can't seem to market anything (I have the uncomfortable feeling that it may well [further] fumble the ball [with its remaining assets].

The new CEO says he is committed to "Reclaiming our Success". ... a nice starting point could be getting to determine precisely what he means by: "We have begun moving the company to embrace a multi-platform, BYOD world by adopting a new mobility management platform and a new device strategy".

... Sorry for the rant, guys.... I think I'm ready for a drink. Cheers!

Surely, this is a subtle criticism filled with rhetorical comment in disguise?!? I would think that you would already be irritated--rather than getting irritated. Remember the movie "Back to the Future." Well, let's drag this horse from the grave and beat it a few more times. The goal for BB was to announce the release of a new operating system and thereby steady the ship and buy a bit more time until release. Second, then was to release a fantastic new OS(10) that would allow a near seamless transition for current OS7/5 users as well as Android/IOS converts. BB succeeded in the first but failed miserably in the second. What isn't clear?!? If you are a student of history, this was the Battle of the Bulge (strictly tactical interpretation): Admittedly, a not very likely scenario for victory but a possibility with expert execution. [Note: Okay, there's a 1001 and one other scenarios ...don't get bogged down here in some sort of attempt at psycho analysis.]

Has socialism taken over the world? BB has been "bullied" .... Yet, "Granted, BBRY has its large share of the blame: it's been through some self-inflicted turmoil." Come on, some backbone here. Stick to your point (or what I think is your point) and avoid the excuses ... or go back to your govt (type) job and a beer. This is capitalism not the playground, and with the big boys. . BB had a last shot, made only a half-hearted effort, leaving room for escape for some if their effort failed and now its a matter of negotiating a settlement (or rather that has been the intention since no later than July 1). This thread (and BB shares) is only fodder for the run-off kings and vultures picking from the bones--admittedly also a legitimate part of the capitalism model. Don't kid yourself, that's also the only goal now for Prem: It was a strategic review for liquidation that was, and still is, occurring. Let's see if Chen defies history and develops (overnight) some skills and excites us on a new "yellow brick road"!?!

Originally Posted by Shanerredflag

^^^ Yes^^^. This is the feeling for "[a lot]", (thanks) of folks...uncertainty breeds bad press...CHEN's first order of business better be cleaning this aspect up....fast. We know the OS is great, we know it's world class....CHEN's job is to convince the markets, the rest will look after itself.

No, not uncertainty, continued non-performance w/o a clear path to future performance breeds bad press. No, Chen's job is not (first at least) to convince the markets (if you mean financial markets anyway) but rather hold on to the govt and corporate accounts--BB's only real source of material revenues--while trying to stop the bleeding from OS10 soft/hardware. And, it follows that the rest will not necessarily take care of itself (unless you mean liquidation).

Chen's job is too mold a product (probably OS10) into matching a "material" target market (or vice versa) enough to get the share price coupled with a significant share volume to unload this overeating and underperforming baby!! BUT, does he indeed try to specialize and hold onto the Govt and Corp clients (mostly w/o OS10 prospect) or try to integrate more with Android and capture a registered % of the total market. BB is spread too thin to pursue both?!? [Note: BTW, this is the absolute classic structure and final decision by many, many prior tech companies--much larger than BB--that faded in their last decade before disappearance.]

Originally Posted by Shanerredflag

Shares of BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY) are down .05 to 6.47 today. The stock is trading near the 52-week lows. Today paper bought 6867 BBRY Jan 2015 5 puts for .17. The ADV is 112,656 contracts. The OI is 39,000 contracts.....

Blah, Blah, Blah, .... no fundamentals. Hasn't been for several years albeit investors were on hold awaiting release of the promised panacea OS10. Well, Pandora's box has been opened and Medusa sprang from within. Still, when/if Medusa gets bored and looks away--if only for an instant, the technicians could get a last laugh with a temporary, small spike in share price.

Originally Posted by cgk

Ah but the the idea advanced was not that this was a contingency plan that this was the plan all along - which has to be either nonsense or the board were more incompetent than we thought. Are we going below 52 week lows on friday?

Correct and in the next few months easily testing 5 where Prem will have to man the turrets himself. ... Right on schedule I might add.

Originally Posted by BB Fightclub

Blue Ridge Capital Hedge Fund buys BB. John Griffin initiated holdings in BlackBerry Ltd. His purchase prices were between $7.95 and $11.53, with an estimated average price of $9.73. The impact to his portfolio due to this purchase was 0.22%. His holdings were 2,345,000 shares as of 09/30/2013." Nice to see a big boy putting money into BB without getting a sweetheart deal.

YES, but what is the real price .... don't by too myopic and confuse what this fund paid with what the real back-room deal is (may be) all about. These are not penny stock traders ... although there is a small amount of manipulative boxing that occurs from time to time.

Originally Posted by notfanboy

Assuming they didn't sell in the meantime, that "big boy" lost 33% of their investment in about three months. Whoever made that call must be kicking themselves.

Read above!! It's not that simple, all the time, guys.

Originally Posted by morlock_man

How many other tech companies have gone through an OS transition where their entirely new OS didn't run on any of their old devices? Doesn't really happen in the PC world.

A strategic error when obviously BB needed (as all smart phone mfrs) to rely on rollover from its current user base. Giving the benefit of the doubt, I suppose that BB found it couldn't make anything near to IOS or Android and still stuff the code to allow backward compatibility....so they took the risk that current BB user base would snarl but stick with BB on an entirely new platform.

Originally Posted by cgk

I'm not sure how PCs are relevant? It's not really a point about specific tech, it's a point that no sensible business starts from a place of saying "we are going to launch a product that we then will write down in six months" - they might have contingency plan for when that happens, they might have done scenario plans for the cost if and when it occurs, they have know it's a risk and might likely happen but no business I have ever heard of start with that as the deliberate plan.

I agree but there is probably some relevance with other segments of the tech industry. Simply study the likes of DG, DEC, Prime, Wang and perhaps Palm as well as CP/M. Now mostly a decade and a half in the past, they are close to a mirror image of what has been happening with BB. (And, if you might not be aware of these names, then you really are playing with fire....or playing w/ drinking money.)

Originally Posted by Superfly_FR

The "emergency stop" scenario I've mentionned earlier tends to demo that. Not a dime on promotion for Z/Q 10 ... because it'll have dig more or at least dry the cash reserve. And they had - and still have - only one shot in the bank ...

In simplistic terms, yes, a half-hearted attempt at saving BB.

Originally Posted by Corbu

"Are we going below 52 week lows on friday?" This sure won't help: "BlackBerry downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie. Macquarie believes a break-up of BlackBerry is unlikely and reduced subscriber estimates. Price target lowered to $5.50 from $7." Man, I am so tired of BBRY in the role of the doormat.

Ho-hum, it was said in the Spring, BB is a $9 stock with the prospects of a (an inflated) takeover bid. Otherwise it is a $7-9 stock drifting under $5 in early 2014 without a takeover. Of course, every house (w/o a conflict of interest) has/will downgrade BB from a hold to sell (or neutral to underperform) in this 4th calendar year quarter. Look at the fundamentals ....

If you participate in this BB forum (not simply this thread), read more deeply into past posts: Granted, it's a bit like panning for gold but there are many great posts relative to the true fundamentals of BB. Lesson Two: BB has NO FREE CASH FLOW and hasn't (from OS10 or likely continuing Ops) for some time--a sure sign of failure in all but a start-up. As an earlier poster rightly described, BB jumped in but only in waste deep water. BB had to risk submersion in early 2011 (likely before) to have any chance (however small) to survive. Yes, BB did seem to covet its cash holdings over investing and making a legitimate stab at re-capturing, for example, 5% of the marketplace. But this is a silly strategy aimed only at mgmt. bonuses and not part of successful strategic planning. BB OS10 today, of course, stands at 0% (rounded) of the current new phone marketplace for smart phones with maybe 3% if we are to splice in the legacy runoff sales.

Lesson Three: If you can't find more than one consumer product sale (from industry sales of 1-1.5B per annum) in your own backyard, well what more be said!!! There are no BB OS10 phones to be found in consumer's hands--especially in material markets outside of Canada. This was true in May, August, and even today despite near give-aways for OS-10 products. Unfortunately, unless a BB insider, prior to March 2013 very few knew how little effort (or incompetence) that BB was placing in OS10: We only read and trusted that the old boys still had something in the tank. What we received in early 2013 was a good mock-up of a proto-typical OS for the masses .... but masses of circa 2010 not for 2013/14. What we have today is a good OS for mid- 2011 and the probability of finding two BB OS10's held by complete strangers in the same restaurant as being similar to winning a NY card lottery game.

If one is still foolish enough to be holding BB for anything but a chance for extra drinking money (and that's okay as long as recognized for what it is), they may well deserve to be treated like a doormat. Sorry for the repetition, these exact words were said after release of BB June financials and hinted at long before. (Foregoing, of course, aside from institutional favors and/or manipulations.)

Originally Posted by OMGitworks

The same brain surgeon also bought 500,000 shares of Tesla at an average cost of $193.77. 52 week high and all time high $194.50. Currently down 35% on that one too. I guess his skills in catching falling knives and capturing rising stars are about equal. EDIT: In other news, ... [many, many stocks are hitting all time highs while BB is swimming against the tide even to post losses in a stock market again gone crazy].

Too many people get caught up in the (un)true meaning of small % speculative institutional purchases. Your sarcasm is right ... but I believe that he must have lost his license to do Brain surgery. Lesson Four: An institution may place an immaterial % of assets into a purely speculative play but it may not be investing to make money as much as to payback a past or prepay for future consideration. BB has mostly lost its ability for major investment by bona fide pension funds except within their sliver of allowance for speculative trades. Outside of perhaps Canada (and the Canadians have had their issues with public pension fund investments), the prospects of the more "stable funds" plunking down pension fund money--other than their allotted sliver for speculative plays--for BB isn't likely. (Further, and for the record, if BB share price drops below $5 for an extended period, it almost certainly will require a reverse split--another unpleasantry to say the least.)

In sum, I've never seen so much mental masturbation in a social thread in my life (okay, not quite true). BB has had no focus on a future target market for 3, maybe 5, years. BB OS10 is still riddled with errors--even considering 10.2 leaks--unacceptable to the masses or for a business man needing a dependable tool. And, hardly needing repeating, the lack of Apps alone is enough to keep growth of BB below 1% of the marketplace. .... For you youngsters, and some of you oldsters, simply take any number of other tech companies (BTW, no need to limit to tech) and overlay the decisions and share price movements, a perfect match. [Note: This is taken from an old post going back to spring 2013. This baby is going down, it's just a matter how much fight (i.e., blips) is left in the share price.]

.... But, to swim away from the penny-stock traders and join with other CB forum topics/threads, I do hope among all its other "distractions" that BB, somehow, simply cleans up OS10 so that my current phones are as reliable in 2014 business as the BB Bolds and Curves of the past were to the pre-2010 climate.

Now that is a crazy investment. I actually own a few myself, which I bought just so I could learn how to use the system and see how it worked. So sketchy. But as of right now I could sell them at more than triple what I paid for them! (Assuming my exchange would actually cash me out, something which I consider a non-trivial risk.) Note I fully expect when they crash that they will crash HARD and be worthless. So anyone who looks into this should be prepared for that to be something that might happen. And if it does it could happen in a matter of a few days, if not just a few hours.

One question for you. How does BBRY maintain the cash pile (which has been fairly static for the last year) without any free cash flow? And these investments that have come in plus the tax refund that is coming they are cash flow. BBRY certainly has the cash to make moves and do something. I don't really know what that will be though. I like my Q10. (Side note, I was having trouble with an App so I decided I'd try a reboot the other day. It then occurred to me that I'd never had a crash causing a reboot during the three months I've had the thing. That is pretty neat.) Anyway, I like my Q10, but the OS is not attractive and I can't see anyone going with it as their exclusive phone. There just aren't enough Apps. I carry two phones and with shared data plans it really isn't too expensive. Also I don't have to worry about battery life. The Q10 is strong in that department (though somewhat inconsistent based on which Apps are left running) and made more so since a lot of the more intensive App activity ends up happening on my iPhone 5. But can duel phone users possibly be a large enough market? No chance would be my guess.